Europeana Space: Best Practice Network
Meemoo’s predecessors were actively involved at an early stage of various European projects, including the Europeana Space project. This project was linked to Europeana, the European portal site for digital cultural heritage, and had the aim of creating an open environment for developing applications and services, drawing from the many digital cultural heritage resources available across Europe.
Challenge
The creative sector in Europe was making little use of digital cultural heritage content when Europeana Space was launched in 2014. This was mainly because of issues surrounding copyright and the need for revenue models to value how much the content could be worth. Europeana Space was keen to address these issues, so it brought together several high-calibre experts from the European creative and technology industries as well as the cultural heritage sector and higher education.
The aim of the project was to encourage the use of Europeana and other similar online collections of digital cultural content. Resources (spaces, pilots and demonstrators) were provided to achieve this with the aim of increasing the creative sector’s interest in digital cultural content. The broad creative sector refers here to content managers, producers, curators, artists, all creators of cultural/creative work, publishers, broadcasters, telecom services…
Our role
In addition to being actively involved in Europeana Space, Best Practice Network (2014 - 2017), PACKED also acted as a partner or coordinator in a series of other European projects between 2008 and 2017:
Athena, Access to Cultural Heritage Networks Across Europe (2008 - 2011)
Digitising Contemporary Art (2011 - 2013)
Linked Heritage, Coordination of standards and technologies for the enrichment of Europeana (2011 - 2013)
AthenaPlus, Access to Cultural Heritage Networks for Europeana (2013 - 2015)
Our participation in these five projects furnished us with valuable knowledge and expertise in European networks.
In Europeana Space, we provided assistance with the intellectual property aspect and coordinated the development of several educational demonstrators. Copyright is still an important knowledge domain within meemoo, and using heritage for educational purposes is another important aspect of our work.
Approach
The project provided three spaces, six pilots and five demonstrators in an open environment for the development of applications and services based on digital cultural content.
Spaces
The three physical and virtual spaces facilitate the creative reuse of content: a technical space, a content space and an innovation space. The spaces contain:
online user guides and tools;
a technical platform;
a platform for IPR management (Intellectual Property Rights);
hackathons and workshops to offer inspiration and support to archive institutions, technical partners, producers and businesses developing new applications;
supervision from business experts to further support creative organisations and entrepreneurs.
Pilots
Six themed pilot projects were set up alongside the spaces to demonstrate innovative examples of how content is used: interactive television, photography, dance, games, publishers and cultural heritage.
Demonstrators
Finally, the five demonstrators highlighted best practices for educational purposes. The practical examples from Europeana Space were then shared all across Europe, supported by a wide-ranging promotional and continuity programme. The demonstrator themes are:
Partners
Coventry University (COVUNI) coordinated the Europeana Space project. The Italian PROMOTER fulfilled the role of technical coordinator. The other partners were:
CIANT - Tsjechië
CUT - Cyprus
EUREVA - Frankrijk
EVK - Estland
FCSH-UNL - Portugal
FST - Italië
GOLDSMITHS - Groot-Brittannië
iMINDS - België
IN2 - Groot-Brittannië
KU LEUVEN - België
LAM - Letland
LGMA - Ierland
LUCE - Italië
MUSEUMSMEDIEN - Duitsland
NISV - Nederland
NOTERIK BV - Nederland
NTUA - Griekenland
OCC - Griekenland
PACKED (nu meemoo) - België
POSTSCRIPTUM - Griekenland
PROTON LABS - Ierland
REMIX - Groot-Brittannië
RBB - Duitsland
SPK - Duitsland
UNEXE - Groot-Brittannië
UNIVE - Italië
WAAG SOCIETY - Nederland